The Week in Art

     It has been quite a week in art class.  We've been super busy getting ready for the art show, so I've been happy with our "low-maintenance" art lessons.  I didn't come up with these lessons, but I did tweak most of them for my liking.  I hope you enjoy hearing about what we're doing!  :]

~~~

Kindergarten: Up in the Air

     I'm loving this fun activity we're doing in Kindergarten.  It's so simple, but the results are just darling so far.  We've cut out our balloons, drew lines with oil pastels, painted with watercolors, and did texture rubbings on our baskets.  I've been really impressed with some of the lines the kids are coming up with! 

1st Grade: Sunflowers and Swirls

     In 1st grade we've been studying two of Van Gogh's paintings: Sunflowers and Starry Night.  On the first day we painted our sunflowers using only three colors and no water (we cleaned our brushes across the bottom of our papers to create the grass).  On the second day we created our "swirly" skies using dashes, swirls, and curvy lines.  I've seen some super cute, creative results so far!

2nd Grade: Tessellations

     At first I was very nervous about this project, but once I understood how to make a tessellation it was a lot of fun.  We made our own shapes, traced them on white paper, outlined with black marker, and now we're coloring using either warm or cool colors.  We've also been focusing on coloring with colored pencils like a whisper.  ;]

3rd Grade: Op Art

     My 3rd graders have been studying optical illusions, so we've been creating these complimentary color pieces of op art.  On 12"x12" sheets of white paper drew our lines and either circles or rectangles.  Then, the kids picked a set of complimentary colors and colored in their patterns.  The only issue is that we had to stop using markers because they run out so fast.  I'm officially not a fan of markers. 

4th Grade: Georgia O'Keefe

     The 4th graders have learned about O'Keefe and her signature flower paintings.  After studying pictures of flowers, we drew our close-ups on a piece of black construction paper.  Then we traced over our pencils lines with Elmer's glue.  After the glue dried, we colored our flowers by blending multiple colors of oil pastels.

5th Grade: Up Close Portraits

     This projects is one of my favorites we're doing right now.  After studying Chuck Close and his particular method of drawing portraits, we began enlarging our own pictures.  First, I printed off pictures of the kids and cut them to exactly 4"x5".  We discussed how to make a 1/2" grid on our pictures, and then a 1" grid on pieces of 8"x10" white drawing paper.  Using small viewfinders that help us to only view one 1/2" at a time, we are transferring/enlarging our portraits to the larger paper.  We just started sketching on Friday, so I'm excited to see how they turn out!  :]

~~~

     So, in a (rather large) nutshell, that's what we're doing in art class these days!  Next week we are going to start new projects in K-4; I'll share those with you once I decide what we're going to be doing.  Currently I have no idea what we're doing next!  Any ideas about what you would like to do?  I'd like to do a batik with one or more grades.  What do you think?